PerseVerAnce wrote:If you ask me, main reason shockers are so strong is because that it's unaffected by the level of the node it's used against.

While this certainly makes sense (and I've added it as a potential possibility - thanks) I can see the resulting bug reports from this, saying "the Shocker says X seconds but only lasts Y."

For my 2 cents to the conversation, I'd have a hard limit to the number of shocker programs you're allowed to take. Maybe 'Roundup(Shocker Level / 2)' for a max of 11, or maybe even a smaller amount '1 + Rounddown(Shocker Level /3)' for a max of 8 per attack.

I like this idea , also like perseverance said , shocker looks powerful since it deals damage in time variable regardless of the level of nodes it attacks , so in my opinion the cost of having a shocker should be a time constrating variable as well , like the compile time of shocker should go up by x seconds for every level upgrade in addition to cost , so players have to choose if they still shock their way through or not .

Not sure how big of a change would it be for devs to make the compilation time dynamic instead of a static variable that we currently have , but luminars idea of limiting the shockers a player can carry should be a relatively easy change to put in

PerseVerAnce wrote:If you ask me, main reason shockers are so strong is because that it's unaffected by the level of the node it's used against.

While this certainly makes sense (and I've added it as a potential possibility - thanks) I can see the resulting bug reports from this, saying "the Shocker says X seconds but only lasts Y."

For my 2 cents to the conversation, I'd have a hard limit to the number of shocker programs you're allowed to take. Maybe 'Roundup(Shocker Level / 2)' for a max of 11, or maybe even a smaller amount '1 + Rounddown(Shocker Level /3)' for a max of 8 per attack.

I like this idea , also like perseverance said , shocker looks powerful since it deals damage in time variable regardless of the level of nodes it attacks , so in my opinion the cost of having a shocker should be a time constrating variable as well , like the compile time of shocker should go up by x seconds for every level upgrade in addition to cost , so players have to choose if they still shock their way through or not .

Not sure how big of a change would it be for devs to make the compilation time dynamic instead of a static variable that we currently have , but luminars idea of limiting the shockers a player can carry should be a relatively easy change to put in

First and foremost I'd like to make it clear that I do my best at respecting everyone's point of view and their suggestions to help improve the game, but I believe we're not discussing this issue right. "Not being able to defend against shockers" is only prevalent midgame where the abundance of players lack experience and overall skill and thus fail to identify the real issue. We are approaching this whole thing inappropriately.

In order to make any improvements we need to look at the cause of the problem, how any changes done would impact the game and if no negative outcomes arise, make adjustments accordingly. So far what we've gotten is feedback from inexperienced and desperate players and affirmative responses from what should be experienced players making the illusion that the problem really is as it appears to them, when in reality it isn't because they're not educated on the manner. Similar to how if someone claimed humans can't swim (theoretical scenario) because they themselves never learned to swim, never has seen anyone swim and points to an irrelevant statement made by a scientist who made the observation we don't have fins, tails or gills, to back up their claim, wouldn't make that true at all - same logic applies to the whole lack of "actual defense against Shocker" issue. It is biased and we shouldn't draw our conclusion on what needs to be done on the basis that we can't defend against the program just because scrubs haven't figured out how to do it. Just because you lack the ability to counter Shocker, doesn't mean you can't counter the program at all, because I do. Some players stock up on up to 20 shockers or sometimes even more and still fail to hack me. Basically, if your opponent is forced to use more than 1 Shocker on a choke, then you're countering the program. Just like defending against Protector means popping it, defending against Shocker means the choke still being up after its effect runs out. You can achieve this by making a choke out of passive AV nodes + a Code Gate to defend from noob Cannons + Shocker spammers and you can shield the nodes to defend against Shocker + Shurikens.

Allow me to school you a bit more: Multiple Shockers overlap themselves enabling you to shock indefinitely just like how a single Protector can shield you indefinitely if it can regenerate faster than it takes damage. For example, against 3 passive max AV nodes a Protector 17 would make that possible as it regenerates 426 (7%) of its buffer per second and the total incoming damage adds up to 393 dps becoming completely immune to the nodes. Case in point like I already stated before, Shocker isn't the only program which is unaffected by the level of the nodes it's installed in or which it affects - there's also stealth. Aside from the filter of Code Gates preventing the installment of Portal and slowing down the installment of the Access program, no other nodes have any discernible effect on stealth programs including the Data Leech. Oh what's that, the Scanner you say? Well, the stealth bar is nothing more than the equivalent to the "3 minutes until network reboots" time during the brute force phase of a hack so the Scanner only increases the amount of time you need to stealth through a network just like the firewall of nodes increase the amount of time you need to get through them during the brute force phase. This is why to combat Shockers you gotta make them take up as much time as possible by either using Code Gates, Guardians or high firewall nodes to your advantage just like you do against stealth using the Scanner. If there was a single node in charge of the firewall of every node, it would be the equivalent to the Scanner but for brute force.

The core of the problem isn't the program itself, but rather the lack of knowledge on how to combat Shockers. It'd be like a player complaining about level 1 stealth wrecking his network because he has no Scanner... ridiculous. With all that said tho, if TA really wants to follow through with catering to the inexperienced, then you could just do as I suggested here: http://forum.tricksterarts.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1478and make the Shocker recharge before it can fire again so it can't overlap itself and shock indefinitely thereby helping rid of the Shocker spammer scrubs and alleviating the pain of the players blindly claiming to be defenseless against such players. Ultimately to bring balance you also need to nerf the Protector, Battering Rams, ICE Walls, Blasters, early and endgame Stealth, Kraken, basically you need to buff the shit out of every node because offence overwhelms defense because of how good programs scale in comparison and the many different strategies you can use to hack which results in defending only getting harder and harder the more you progress through the game, which if anything it's ass backwards in all honesty. For instance, why is it that level 1 Battering Rams take 4 shots to take down a level 1 Code Gate and a level 15 Battering Ram can take out a level 21 Code Gate in just as long? You see how the scaling of these programs make no sense and why it gets harder to defend the more you level up? Stupid logic imo. Programs shouldn't scale faster than nodes - this is why it's easier to counter stealth at mid-game because the scanner scales faster than stealth does.

In conclusion, there are many issues that need to be solved and giving another way to counter Shockers isn't one of them. Even Luminaar's suggestion to restrict the amount of Shockers we're allowed to take with us is absurd. I compile while I hack and sometimes compile enough for two hacks (besides having to stock up on a couple more ICE Walls and Shurikens for the next hack) so putting a limit on how many programs I can carry besides the amount my library space allows would disrupt the rate at which I can hack subsequently worsening the amount of time required to fill up my resources which is ridiculously long already... as if the broken search wasn't bad enough. I'm not denying that defending is hard, even I struggle to defend against some decent players as well, but people need to learn how to combat specific programs and strategies. Although offence in general scales better than defense, the Shocker has already been nerf'd before so unless you're going to bring more balance to the game by also buffing defense and/or nerfing all listed programs, it doesn't need to be altered again.

TheLurkingRage wrote:"Not being able to defend against shockers" is only prevalent midgame where the abundance of players lack experience and overall skill and thus fail to identify the real issue.

I'm not sure this is quite the case. While there are clearly inexperience issues with regards to defending appropriately against Shockers, which your explanations cover quite nicely , I believe the issue is that an abundence of Shockers are able to exert too much control over a network at minimal cost.

TheLurkingRage wrote:Basically, if your opponent is forced to use more than 1 Shocker on a choke, then you're countering the program. Just like defending against Protector means popping it, defending against Shocker means the choke still being up after its effect runs out. You can achieve this by making a choke out of passive AV nodes + a Code Gate to defend from noob Cannons + Shocker spammers and you can shield the nodes to defend against Shocker + Shurikens.

While your suggestion of an example anti-Shocker point in the network is sound, (and I quote it in its entirety so folks get a second chance at reading a decent Shocker counter,) the issue seems to be with the potential of Shockers to nullify the remainder of the network with minimal effort. Since anti-Shocker setups usually rely on multiple Guardians to protect against Shuirkens while maintaining pressure, there are usually no more than 2 of these setups on a network.

So, Anti-Shocker point aside, since Shocker is clearly not an answer to that, if you're getting stomped by purely Shockers, then there are steps a player can take to limit this. (Again, see Lurks comments above.) My current concern regarding Shockers is both the vast number of them that can be equipped in comparison to the available number of other nodes on the network (even discounting the Anti-Shocker points mentioned), and also their effectiveness on the remaining nodes being better than Maniacs, due to their potential of using one Shocker plus a handful of other programs (targets dependant) to completely nullify all connected nodes with both minimal thought, and at a much cheaper compile and coin cost to the Maniac.

TheLurkingRage wrote:The core of the problem isn't the program itself, but rather the lack of knowledge on how to combat Shockers.

Given the example above regarding Shockers not being the answer to everything, the issue becomes less related to defending against Shockers, and more that a network can only maintain 1-2 anti-Shocker points given the limit of other nodes such as Code Gates and Guardians, while an offensive payload can potentially include a Shocker for every node on the network. (Side Note: No one wants to see a 4 Guardian Core either )

TheLurkingRage wrote:Even Luminaar's suggestion to restrict the amount of Shockers we're allowed to take with us is absurd.

Given the above, I'd still like to see a limit on Shockers somehow. While a hard cap may indeed be catering to the "whims of the uneducated" as pointed out, I certainly wouldn't object to an increase in coin cost, disk space or compilation time, as per the comparison to the Maniac.

(For the record, I also think Maniac is underused for its absolutely massive damage per second potential, but the compilation time is just horrible )

There are 10 types of people in the world. Those that can read binary, and those that cant.

TheLurkingRage wrote:Basically, if your opponent is forced to use more than 1 Shocker on a choke, then you're countering the program. Just like defending against Protector means popping it, defending against Shocker means the choke still being up after its effect runs out.

I completely disagree with this.

When you consider that an end game program library has 360 slots, and even an averagely upgraded library can have 210 slots, having to use 2 Shockers is nothing. Additionally, unlike a Protector, applying the second Shocker results in nearly no time lost. Whereas applying a second Protector costs 4 seconds of hacking time to install the Protector.

Similarly, I wouldn't say simply popping a Protector once is enough to defend against it either. For example, by the time it pops they could already be past the defenses. Or if they reapply the Protector and got past the second time.

The rest of your argument assumes that the premise is true. So further discussion is not possible until the premise is agreed on.

Luminaar wrote:I certainly wouldn't object to an increase in coin cost, disk space or compilation time, as per the comparison to the Maniac.

(For the record, I also think Maniac is underused for its absolutely massive damage per second potential, but the compilation time is just horrible )

Reducing the Maniac's library size did help, but it could use more. I find the Maniac is absurdly expensive to upgrade (Maniac 2 = Beam 14 ...WTF??) and takes too long to compile. While it is pricey to compile as well; it's usually not the price, but the compile time that makes me not want to use it. I don't use it in the majority of my hacks when playing on my "Maniac Main"

While I do agree that shockers need to be limited, having a small hardcap on them will just make level 20-35 min/maxer bases untouchable since you need a Slough of shockers just to proceed against level 1 nodes protected by a gold or white sentry

Sibernetika wrote:While I do agree that shockers need to be limited, having a small hardcap on them will just make level 20-35 min/maxer bases untouchable since you need a Slough of shockers just to proceed against level 1 nodes protected by a gold or white sentry

And that is why it makes even more sense to have the compile time of shocker increase with every level upgrade . It does not completely the solve the issue of shock spamming during a hack , but atleast it makes players chose how many shockers they want to carry or how they want to use it .

Also , the max levels for some of these programs should not be 21 . May be we can determine the max level of a program based on program hierarchy chart , like the first level (in this case beams) will have max level of 21 , the next level ( shurikens, Icewall ) have a max lvl of 20 , the next level 17, then 15 and finally 10 (Maniac being maxed at 10).

Im not saying this is how it should be and i know players will call this anything from being unfair to outright the stupidest or dumbest idea , but i just want to know what some other players here think of this . At the end of the day i just want this game get better

Sibernetika wrote:While I do agree that shockers need to be limited, having a small hardcap on them will just make level 20-35 min/maxer bases untouchable since you need a Slough of shockers just to proceed against level 1 nodes protected by a gold or white sentry

Protector is by far a better program to combat "high Sentry, low everything else" networks. Since the rest of the defense nodes contribute very little to the overall DPS, moderately leveled (that is: you don't need over-leveled) Protectors won't break. The only potential hiccup is not bringing enough protectors, either as a miscalculation or lack of library space. It's also worth pointing out you don't need over-leveled offense programs to break such networks, either, as all those low-level defense nodes can, in turn, be taken out with low level offense programs.

Low level nodes with a high sentry tends to be a white sentry at 27-29 mark you need a nice protector if you feel like using 2 or 3 ice walls and a protector just to proceed from one node to another, when it would be cheaper and faster to just ice wall shocker

Actually you're both wrong. Protector is for lengthy fights as you already know HD, so why install a Protector when taking down the nodes take just as long as it would take to install one? Shockers are for rushing through tough choke points, so neither program is appropriate for countering such networks. What you should be using are ICE Walls.